Alexis Pye

Alexis Pye (born 1995, Detroit, MI) is a Houston-based artist whose practice explores the tradition of portraiture to express the Black body outside of its social constructs. Placing her subjects in leisurely, luscious, nature-rich and even fantastical settings, her works evoke, playfulness, wonder and Blackness, as well as the joys amidst adversity. Her formal strategies include an integration of mixed media within painting, including embroidery and punch-stitch needlework.

 

Pye received her BFA in Painting from the University of Houston in 2018. In 2019, she was awarded the Juror’s Choice Prize for the 20th Annual Citywide African American Artists Exhibition held at Texas Southern University, selected by Kanitra Fletcher. She has been included in group exhibitions at David Shelton Gallery (Houston, 2019), Inman Gallery (Houston, 2020), Community Artists Collective (Houston, 2021), Martha’s Contemporary (Austin, 2021), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (Houston, 2022), Women & Their Work (Austin, 2023), and Fort Worth Contemporary Arts at the Art Galleries at TCU (Fort Worth, 2023). She has completed residencies with Project Row Houses (Houston, 2018), Lawndale Art Center (Houston, 2022) and the Asia Society (Houston, 2023). Her first institutional solo exhibition, You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, and blue sea and black people, debuted at Lawndale Art Center in Spring 2023. Her Spring 2024 solo exhibitions include Visions Via Riding High (The Art League Houston) and The Melancholic Girls Brigade: The Lovers, The Dreamers, and Me (Inman Gallery, forthcoming May 2024).

 

Alexis Pye lives and works in Houston, TX.